Mother's Day Gift
by ondine
Summary: This fic centers on Tifa Lockheart and a character that Square could have probably developed a bit more background on. This is a multi-chapter bit (yes, it is a CLOTI) that focuses on who Tifa is and two relationships that she has and how they will ultima
1. Default Chapter

Mother's Day Gift  
  
Alright, just a set-the-scene chapter. I was going to make this a one-shot, but hey, things turn out differently sometimes. This is going to be a multi-chapter fic (no really?) The plot is going to be unique (really!) but never fear...it is still a Cloti, just more subtle and not "wam bam I love you ma'am" types. Well, at least I hope that's how it'll be. Please review because the best thing you can do for an author is to review.   
  
Chapter 1  
  
It had been a long time. She looked at the dark and foreboding mountains that loomed up in the distance - the Nibelheim Mountains. She looked at the cozy and beautiful town of Nibelheim and back at the gloomy, gray mountains. Such a great contrast she thought offhandedly.  
  
Within mere minutes, Tifa Lockheart dismounted her chocobo and entered the gates of Nibelheim. It was as she and the AVALANCHE members had left it during their quest, save for a few more residential houses that have sprouted up since the fall of Meteor. It was true that Nibelheim's population and popularity was bolstered due to the propaganda about the "Heroes of the Planet", but not even that could take away from the atmosphere that Nibelheim always had - cozy, quiet, and peaceful.  
  
Several resident took notice of her arrival and greeted her warmly as if they had lived in the quaint town all their lives. Tifa responded in kind since some of its residents (save for the actors that were hired by Shinra) never really knew of the disaster that occurred years ago.   
  
Absolutely nothing drastic has changed in her reconstructed hometown. It was almost as if the tragedy had never even taken place all those years ago. The cherry blossom trees stood to their full height. The scent of pine and spring made their way to the young maiden's nostrils filling her lungs with the fresh scent. Sunlight blessed the small town deeming it as one of its favored children on the face of the planet, illuminating every single edifice and cobblestone with its radiance. Making her way up the cobblestone street with her chocobo and satchel, she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the structure loom before her.  
  
The Nibelheim well.  
  
It had the same disconcerting effect on her about five years ago when she first stepped into the reconstructed Nibelheim. There were so many emotions, thoughts, and memories that were attached to that well - anything that were attached to him. All of the 'what ifs' and the guessing and the confusion . . .  
  
Stop it.  
  
Tifa mentally kicked herself for dwelling on past issues. Give it a rest Lockheart! You've laid those issues to rest long ago.  
  
She shook her head slowly with an upward turn of her lips in bemusement of herself and walked onward. Just past the well stood her home and beside it was . . .  
  
There I go again.  
  
Tifa sighed in a defeated manner. Of course coming back to where it all began would jumpstart the memories, but then again, she had to come back. The woman had to come back because she missed her home; she wanted to taste a bit of the nostalgia that she did when she arrived with AVALANCHE. That, and another reason - a personal reason.  
  
The young woman tied her chocobo to a post in the front of her porch. The brunette began riffling through her satchel for the keys. After a moment, she chuckled softly to herself after finding out that she didn't have the key to the house. Back when AVALANCHE went to Tifa's house for the first time, the doors were locked, so Yuffie, being the resourceful person she was, took out a key ring with a variety of keys to open the door. After finding one that worked, Tifa requested that Yuffie leave the key somewhere in the porch just in case Tifa wanted to come back.  
  
"Now where could she have put it?" Tifa mused aloud. The 'Wark' of her chocobo answered her as it started pecking and eating one of the potted plants on the porch.  
  
"Hey! Just what do you think you're eating buddy?" the young woman exclaimed as she took the pot and half-eaten plant away from her chocobo. As she did so, something in the pot glinted in the sun's rays and abruptly caught Tifa's attention. Upon closer inspection, Tifa fished out the key that was wedged between the plant's leaves.  
  
"Thanks Yuff," Tifa said as she fit the key into the lock and turned the knob to her 'home'.   
  
~End Ch. 1~ 


	2. Chapter 2

Mother's Day Gift  
  
Author's Note: All right, I just figured out that I couldn't do italics on fanfiction.net. So, thoughts of characters will be indicated as: /text in here/ okay? Now, a thank you goes to those that reviewed because it provides inspiration for a person to go on with the tale that they want to tell. This chapter starts going into the plot (just the skimming the surface part). One of the issues I was confused about while playing the game was how Shinra seemed to reconstruct Nibelheim down to the very exact detail, which in my point of view is downright eerie. So read on and review and tell me what you think about the whole entire Shinra set up in the game. Enjoy.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
A barrage of memories assaulted her senses the moment she stepped in. The sweet smell of potpourri and wood filled her nose. Burgundy eyes traveled over the familiar flowery wallpaper, the hard maple wood floor, and the faded photographs.  
  
/Faded photographs?/  
  
Tifa dropped her satchel and made her way over to the wall lined with picture frames.  
  
/The pictures. . ./  
  
Her bordeaux eyes scrutinized the photographs as if trying to piece together a complex puzzle. The only problem was that one of the pieces of the puzzle didn't seem to fit together. Her eyes scanned the photos. A tiny voice in the back of her mind was telling her that something was out of place.  
  
/There./  
  
The woman's long white fingers lightly touched one of the picture frames assuring her that it was real.  
  
Curiosity taking control, she delicately grasped the frame off the wall. With trembling hands, she took the backing out of the frame to find that the photo was indeed genuine.  
  
She took the photo out of the frame and looked closer. It was a candid snapshot of a young Tifa Lockheart at a faraway distance playing in the fields just outside of Nibelheim. It appeared to be taken while Tifa was in mid run chasing a slew of monarch butterflies - a distant happy moment in her life.  
  
/But how can this be? Just when everything was burnt down?/  
  
Tifa put the photo and the frame down on a table and began looking at the other photos on the first level of the house. Tifa distinctly remembered that the second floor of the Lockheart home was untouched by time even after the Sephiroth incident since it seemed that the fire all those years ago wasn't able to reach upstairs. The only thing that Tifa noticed when she came back five years ago was that the downstairs was slightly different in that all of the photos and pictures of her family have been replaced with seascapes and landscapes of the area surrounding Nibelheim. That, and the cryptic robed figures that constantly roamed about the home were the only stark differences.   
  
Though the robed figures were gone, there was something else that was amiss.   
  
There were pictures of her.  
  
It was a discreet thing at first. Her pictures were blended well with various pastel seascapes and landscapes. However, Tifa's instinct of what belonged and didn't belong in her home prevailed.  
  
After a good ten minutes of going through the entire home, Tifa had collected four pictures of her. She took her findings upstairs and settled on her bed to review them. What disturbed her the most was that there was only one real photograph of her in her childhood. The rest were all pieces of artwork - all of her. The first was an oil pastel of Tifa in her blue dress sitting on the Nibelheim well pointing at something in the sky amidst a dark blue background. The second was a black and white sketch of Tifa in her adolescent years in a larger version of her blue dress sitting in a field of wildflowers with the town of Nibelheim in the background. The last was an exquisitely done watercolor rendition of Tifa in a light blue flowing dress asleep under a tree.   
  
/Where did these come from?/  
  
A persistent ring answered her. She got up from her bed and took the PHS out of her satchel.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Tifa?"  
  
"Yuffie!" the brunette exclaimed with surprise and happiness at hearing her friend.  
  
"Hi Tifa. I just wanted to call to wish you a belated Happy Birthday. Sorry, if I called a couple of days late," Yuffie offered apologetically.  
  
The brunette smiled and gave a slight chuckle, "No problem, but thanks."  
  
"So where are you right now? How's everyone doing? How are you?" Yuffie asked with much enthusiasm.  
  
"Whoa there, slow down! I just got here in Nibelheim, and I'm fine."  
  
"Yeah, so I heard; Barret told me. How's the rest of the crew doing?"  
  
"Oh, they're all doing fine. I heard Cid and Shera are expecting a child in a couple of months..."   
  
The conversation carried on that way for a good half hour as the two related to each other about their other friends and themselves. Reeve has rebuilt Midgar and is now the presiding mayor of that thriving city. Barret and Marlene live in Corel, which has also become a successful town. Red XIII resides in Cosmo Canyon acting as an elder. Vincent is known to stop by Cosmo Canyon once in a while, but his usual whereabouts are unknown. Cid and Shera have settled in Rocket Town where they opened up a flight school. Yuffie being Yuffie, has decided to travel the world over before staying in Wutai to open up her own materia shop. Tifa has taken up residence in the city of Junon where she opened up a bar and jazz nightclub.  
  
Suddenly, there was a silence between the two women when they near finished their list of common friends - with one name that went unmentioned. There was an understanding between them that the name didn't have to be said since it would cause questions to rise up only to be unanswered. His name floated in the air for a brief moment and fell to the ground dead - as if it had never existed in the first place.  
  
"So," Yuffie cleared her throat, "last conversation I had with you, it appeared you were getting to know someone better."  
  
"Oh, that," Tifa replied as she gave let out a sigh, half in relief at the subject that wasn't initiated and half in disdain for the memory that the current subject brought up.  
  
"Well? How did it go? Wasn't his name Trent?" Yuffie asked egging Tifa on.  
  
"Trey," Tifa corrected.  
  
"Trent. Trey. What does it matter?"   
  
"It didn't work out," Tifa finished deadpan.  
  
"What? Why not?"  
  
"Not my type."  
  
"None of them are..." Yuffie said with softly.  
  
Tifa opened her mouth to respond with a witty remark, but found the reality in what her friend had said. She had moved on, after all. Here she was, a bright, beautiful, and astute young woman who was renowned for her successful bar business and her role in the revered AVALANCHE. Yet, she couldn't -   
  
"Tifa? Are you still there? Hello?" Yuffie asked with a bit of amusement and impatience.  
  
Snapped out of her reverie, Tifa replied, "Yes, I'm still here."  
  
"Listen, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later alright?"  
  
"Sure. By the way, thanks for leaving the key to my house inside the flower pot."  
  
"Flower pot?" Yuffie asked with a puzzled tone.  
  
"Yeah, remember I asked you to hide it in the porch?"  
  
"I know. I remember that, but I didn't hide it there. I hid the key under the doormat."  
  
"You did?"  
  
"Yes, c'mon Tifa. It's me, Yuffie - I never forget secret hiding places," Yuffie said confidently.  
  
Tifa arched her eyebrow in thought. /Then how...?/  
  
"Anyway, happy birthday Tifa," Yuffie continued, "Take care and try to meet another guy with a more common name." With that, the ninja hung up.  
  
Tifa clicked off her PHS and turned to the bed with the pictures. A look of consternation and deep thought crossed her features as she tried to figure out the confusing situation she was in.   
  
She sat back down on her bed once again and took apart the pictures from their frames. While doing so, she noticed dates on the back of each picture. One picture, the oil pastel, was dated three years ago, with the black and white sketch dating two years ago. The most recent one was the watercolor, which was dated last year.   
  
"That's odd," Tifa mumbled softly to herself as she arranged the pictures face up on her bed.   
  
She fished the key out of her pocket and laid it on her bed. /Yuffie had hidden the key under the doormat, but why did I find it in a flowerpot?/ Tifa knitted her eyebrows in confusion, and with a huff, she fell down on her bed. "It just doesn't make sense."  
  
~End Ch. 2~ 


	3. Chapter 3

Mother's Day Gift  
  
Author's Note: Sorry everyone. It's been awhile, I know. So much for finishing this on Mother's Day (as was my original intent). Thanks for all those that read AND reviewed, but if you didn't review that's ok! This is just for fun and for the enjoyment of others. So on with the story. (Insert Squaresoft copyright spiel here)  
  
Chapter 3  
  
The figure was hazy in the distance. The fog surrounding the two of them didn't help matters either. It had just stood there, unmoving as if it were waiting for her. Tifa squinted her eyes to make out the figure, but only a blurred outline could be seen.  
  
A slight chuckle rang clearly in the fog, almost as if it were physically cutting through it reaching her. Then music began swirling around her.  
  
Tifa stood stock still in the void listening intently to the piano that was playing somewhere, yet everywhere. The arpeggios were right on key, never missing its mark. The emotions behind the keys were strong, yet restrained almost as if it were some controlled passion. The song, a haunting melancholy that had an abundance of treble sounds with no bass which didn't make it dark and depressing…just a bit sad.  
  
Her mother used to play this song.  
  
Tifa recalled that she had tried to learn this song right after her mother died to keep her spirit in the Lockheart household alive. However, she decided to give it up since her small hands just weren't long enough to reach the full octaves required to play the song.  
  
*You can try reaching them now, Tifa.*  
  
"Mama?"  
  
The brunette woke up with a start. She had never had a dream with her mother before. Most of her dreams were usually about death – her mother's, her father's, the destruction of her town, but never anything quite like this. The dream had just reinforced the reason why Tifa had come back to Nibelheim in the first place – she had wanted to visit her mother's grave.  
  
Tifa sat up on her bed glancing at the artworks. She noticed small initials and signatures on each of them.   
  
/They're artists' works./  
  
She sat there staring at the different signatures on the pictures formulating some logical reason connecting the drawings to the key in the flowerpot. The young woman felt that the only logical reason was that her house was on public display – hence, the artists' pictures and the key in the flowerpot. The house curator must have found the key and moved it to a more discreet place.   
  
After all, the old Strife home was considered a main attraction for tourists in this town with its billowy banner proclaiming "The Roots of the Planet's Hero". As if it could get any cornier than that, Tifa did not know.  
  
/He would've hated it./ Tifa smiled to herself as she put the pictures back in their respective frames.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The sun was just about to set past the Nibelheim mountains. The town of Nibelheim was aglow with the retreating rays of the sun. An outline of a person on chocobo could be seen approaching the town's gates.   
  
The figure quickly dismounted and led the chocobo to a familiar section of town where there were cafés and sidewalk artists. The man spots the familiar group of artists and makes quick strides over to them.   
  
"Ahh, you again," a middle aged woman said nonchalantly as she glanced up from her easel where she was sketching a portrait of a client in front of her.  
  
"Well, looks like you're back in town!" an old man said in surprise. "I knew you were bound to come. It's that time of year again, huh?"  
  
"Yeah, it is," the man said surveying the town around him. "I was wondering if you could make a work for me this time."  
  
The old man's eyes lit up, "Ha, I was wondering when you'd ask. I thought I'd never get the chance."  
  
"Well, I just wanted to get different artistic styles each time. I'll make this one worth your while."   
  
"Hey George, is he asking you this time?" an artist with a black beret said as he stood up from his easel and walked over to the old man. He turned to the youth and asked "Are you asking for the same thing again?"  
  
The man gave a small smile and nodded.  
  
"Hmph, figures. George, make sure you don't screw up on this one. Maybe you can best me on the watercolor that I did for this guy last year."  
  
"We'll see about that Roger," George said playing along with the fellow artist's challenge. Turning back to his client, George rubbed his old, weathered hands together, "So, what'll it be? Watercolor? Pencil? Oil pastels?"  
  
"I'd like a painting this time."  
  
"Sure, I can do a painting," George said enthusiastically as he rummaged through his bag for his paints. "Have a seat and start describing the girl again to me. I think I forgot since the last time you were here."  
  
The young man took his seat and started recalling the girl's features.   
  
/I wonder if she has changed./  
  
He shook his head. Her…change? Not likely. At least he hoped that she hadn't changed both physically and personality-wise.   
  
Then again, so much time had passed.  
  
The young man looked up to see George patiently waiting for him to come out of his short reverie.   
  
"Well, are you going to tell me about her, or are you just going to sit there lolling your head daydreaming?"  
  
The youth pursed his lips together and finally spoke. "She has brown hair. It's dark…almost like chocolate."  
  
"Alright, you're going to have to tell me more. Try to be more specific so I can try to get this on the first shot," George said.  
  
"Her hair is pretty long…past her hips. She has eyes the color of wine…and she has this great smile –   
  
George chuckled, "Whoa there, sounds to me like you have a thing for this certain girl. Instead of you getting so flustered telling me about how great she is, do you happen to have a picture of her so I can get a clearer idea of what she looks like?"  
  
The man nodded and brought forth a worn picture of the woman from his pocket and handed it to George.   
  
"She's beautiful," George offered. The picture was of a woman leaning on a railing. Her hair was slightly billowing behind her from the wind. She had long, silky hair matched with a complexion of creamy milk. Her eyes held the spark of youth, and at the same time held a certain wisdom that one can only acquire after having been through many trials. The woman's smile was radiant and genuine since most of it can also be emanated from her eyes. He did a double take of the picture and recognized something vaguely familiar about the girl. His scruffy gray eyebrows knitted together in thought, "Come to think of it, she looks like that one girl, Tifa Lock-  
  
Immediately, the young man took the picture from the old man's hands and looked at him for a moment with blue eyes that pleaded for the man not to say her name. "Yes, now do you have a clear idea?"  
  
The old man's eyebrows shot up. The younger man's behavior was quite erratic. It was apparent that it had a great deal to do with this girl. George nodded then turned to his easel and started to paint.   
  
~End Ch. 3~ 


End file.
